Intentional You Are 

How intentional You are, Lord…

Sometimes it leaves me in quiet wonder.

I lie beneath the shelter of a tree,

the hammock swaying in rhythm with the breeze,

like gentle hands rocking what is learning to rest.

Above me, a canopy stretches wide…

A living tapestry of green

stitched together by light, wind, and time.

Thousands of leaves

dance overhead like tiny mirrors,

catching the sun and scattering it

in fragments across my skin.

I try to count them,

to make sense of such abundance,

but my eyes are drawn instead

to what is, I am sure, almost always overlooked.

The veins.

Delicate pathways,

fine rivers etched into a fragile skin,

woven with such precision

they feel less like structure

and more like intention made visible.

They carry life where no eye can see

water, nourishment, unseen provision

traveling faithfully

to every outer edge,

every hidden corner,

And every place vulnerable to drying out.

Even the torn and tattered edges are not abandoned.

The larger veins branch outward

into smaller ones,

and smaller still,

until what first appeared simple

reveals itself as a quiet complexity.

A hidden architecture of care.

A system so thoughtful,

so intricate,

so necessary,

that without it the leaf could not remain.

And I cannot help but wonder

how often I have mistaken simplicity

for absence of depth.

How often I have looked at Your creation

and seen only the surface,

missing the unseen systems

sustaining us all.

Because what appears effortless in nature

is often upheld by countless unseen details.

The leaf does not strive to remain alive.

It simply receives

what has already been provided.

And somehow, this teaches me.

The leaves preaching without a sound.

In spring, they emerge soft and green,

tender with becoming,

fragile yet full of promise…

Like new life unfolding without apology.

Summer deepens them,

stretching them broad beneath the warmth,

anchored, steady,

drinking deeply from what sustains them.

Then autumn arrives,

and they do not resist the invitation to change.

They turn gold

like wheat fields kissed by the dawn,

amber like honey held in the sunlight,

crimson like embers refusing to dim,

before softening into brown… 

earth toned, weathered, honest.

Returning quietly to the ground from which life begins again.

No season clings

to what was only meant for a moment.

No leaf mourns

that it cannot remain spring forever.

It simply yields

to the wisdom written into its own design.

And there, beneath this tree,

with light slipping through the branches

in shards of gold and warmth,

I feel You teaching me this gently

That intention is often hidden in the small things.

In veins no one notices.

In seasons no one can rush.

In slow transformations

that seem ordinary until truly observed.

If You are this attentive

with every leaf above me…. 

designing each vein,

sustaining each season,

accounting for both growth and release….

Then surely my life, too,

is held with that same careful precision.

Nothing in me overlooked.

No dry place unseen.

No broken edge forgotten.

Only a life

being nourished in ways

I do not always recognize

by the hands of a God

who is infinitely intentional.